Gaz woke up to find he had had a 'romance explosion' all over his face. Read in to that what you will. His situation paled in comparison to what Gilbey had woken up to though. The poor guy was in free flow from both ends, for which we all felt sympathy, but wished he had made it a little further from camp before he was forced to unload. Most of us stumbled across a messy combination frozen to the ground whilst cleaning our teeth that morning...nice. We pressed on and found a small village that was able to up our food stocks a little and provide a non-descript bag of something warm from a street stall. Gilbey passed and curled up in to an ever smaller ball under a blanket in the back of The Bumblebee. Naturally, the petrol station was out of stock but we managed to scrape another 20 litres from the locals. We seriously questioned whether this would satisfy Dreagle's petrol addiction. The bike had turned in to a crack addict! The team motored on through deep sand, rocky tracks and near impassable obstacles that Ruth attacked with suicidal vigour; all the while the Volcano taking up more of our view. And then it happened. The elation was extreme as the first glimpse of the vast expanse of white opened up in front of us. The entrance we had chosen was flanked by steep volcanic rock outcrops covered in '˜cowboy cacti' ... and on we went. The first km was a wet crusty mush that threatened to eat our bikes but the further we went, the drier it got. After 15 minutes or so we rounded a rocky spur and the true vastness of this natural miracle made itself apparent. As we ploughed on across the solid crust the surrounding horizon gave way to nothing but white, white and more white. We made many photo stops for salt fights and jumping cows (which didn't help Paddy's torn hamstring much - the series of snaps show the moment of '˜re-twang' amusingly well) and had a bit of split team nav confusion as the faster bikes pressed ahead. Both teams came to a halt about 1Km apart and entered in to a Mexican standoff - assuming that the other had thrown a chain or gained a puncture we all sat dutifully waiting the other team to join us. Eventually the faster bikes broke the stalemate and pootled over to the other half. Not long after, Jasco did actually collect a puncture - an epic achievement given the vast, smooth, debris free flatness of the place. Dreagle came to help and the realisation dawned that the others, who had stopped about 3km ahead, were carrying some fairly essential tools. A spark of inspiration comes to Paddy who starts flashing S.O.S on the headlights. This was clearly seen by his highly trained and experienced military counterparts and greeted with the response '˜I wonder why he's playing with his lights'... my god. Paddy eventually set off on Dreagle to recover the tools and the puncture was repaired. The group then filmed the brilliant formation footage and decided to part ways. Half wanted to swing by a rock island in the middle of the flats whilst the rest felt that it would look just like the rocks at the start of the flats and would prefer to hit the other side in daylight. Nav on the salt flats is a simple matter of picking a bearing on the compass, trying to follow it and hoping it's right. There is nothing to be seen but a smooth white horizon from the middle of the flats. The first group eventually hit the edge and saw a group of buildings that they hoped was the reward for days of shower-free camping. However, this junket wasn't done with them yet. The next obstacle to overcome was yet another road block. A large group of angry-looking locals were protesting about various issues whilst drinking beers in front of a large painting of Che Guavara and a cattle truck which, rather worryingly, appeared to contain a few people who would rather not be there...hard to tell. As usual the team flashed winning smiles, furry taxis, silly outfits and traded a few beers and cigarettes and the now smiling locals let us through to our idea of heaven - The Salt Hotel.
This place has to be seen to be believed. Made almost entirely from salt; walls, tables, chairs, floors; all carved from the white stuff. The furballers faces were something to behold as they walked in to the comfortable bedrooms and saw the hot showers. The majority got a hot shower that night but then the hot water ran out and was not due to return until seven the next morning. This meant that a few of the split team who had gone to the island, only to discover it was just a rock covered in cacti, missed out on the joy of hot water. This was a disappointment to Gilbey in particular who made a clear but calm statement that he wouldn't be leaving the hotel until he had made contact with hot running water as he 'still had shit on the inside of his leg'...lovely. At least he was starting to feel a bit better. The luxury hotel actually became self-catering courtesy of the blockade. No supplies were getting through so a team of furball chefs whipped up a storm in the kitchen and produced a very respectable evening meal from our own and a few of the hotels rations. We then sat down in front of a roaring open fire, polished off all the alcohol in the building (which wasn't actually that much) and retired to the first comfy, warm bed we had seen in over a week.